In 1595 was published in London: "Vincentio Saviolo his Practise. In two Bookes. The first intreating the use of the Rapier and Dagger. The second of Honour and Honourable Quarrels." (Etc.) The celebrated swordsman sets forth only the Italian system, and has naught to say upon the French. The book that Winwood studied may have been some reprint (now unknown), with notes or additions by a later hand. In any case, he may have acquired through it sufficient rudimentary acquaintance with some sort of practice to enable him to excite the French fencing-master's interest.
"Lady Washington's Light Horse" was a name sometimes unofficially applied to Lieut.-Col. Baylor's Dragoons. They were sleeping in a barn and outbuildings, at Old Tappan, one night in the Fall of 1778, when they were surprised by General Grey, whose men, attacking with bayonets, killed 11, mangled 25, and took about 40 prisoners. Both Col. Baylor and Major Clough were wounded, the latter fatally. It is of course this affair, to which Lieut. Russell's narrative alludes.
The Morris house, now known as the Jumel mansion, was half a generation old at the beginning of the Revolution. Thither, as the bride of Captain Morris, a brother-officer of Washington's in the old French war, went Mary Philipse; whom young Washington was said to have wooed while he tarried in and about New York upon his memorable journey to Boston to solicit in vain, of Governor Shirley, a king's commission. The Revolution found the Morrises on the side opposed to Washington's; for a short time during the operations above New York in 1776 he occupied this house of theirs as headquarters. They lost it through their allegiance to the royal cause, all their American real estate being confiscated by the New York assembly. The mansion became in time the residence of that remarkable woman who, from a barefoot girl in Providence, R.I., had grown up to be the wife of a Frenchman named Jumel; and to be the object of much admiration, and the subject of some scandal. In her widowhood she received under this roof Aaron Burr, after his duel with Hamilton (whose neighbouring country-house still exists, in Convent Avenue), and under this roof she and Burr—both in their old age—were united in marriage. I imagine that some of the ghosts that haunt this mansion, if they might be got in a corner, would yield their interviewers a quaint reminiscence or two. The grounds appertaining to the house have been sadly diminished by the opening of new streets; yet it is still a fine, striking landmark, perched to be seen afar, as from the railroad trains that follow the East bank of the Harlem, or, better, from West 155th Street at and about its junction with St. Nicholas Place and the Speedway. At the time when I left New York for a temporary residence in the Old World, there was talk of moving the house to a less commanding, but still eminent, height that crowns the bluff rising from the Speedway: the owner was compelled, it was said, to avail himself of the increased value of the land whereon it stood. 'Tis some pity if this has been, or has to be, done; but nothing to the pity if the mansion had to be pulled down. Apart from all associations and historical interest, this imposing specimen of our Colonial domestic architecture, so simple and reposeful an edifice amidst a world of flat buildings, and of gew-gaw houses built for sale on the instalment plan to the ubiquitous Mr. and Mrs. Veneering, is a precious relief, nay an untiring delight, to the eye.
During this Winter (1779-80) the Continental army was in two main divisions. The one with which Washington made his headquarters was hutted on the heights about Morristown, N.J. The other, under General Heath, was stationed in the highlands of the Hudson. Intermediate territory, of course, was more or less thoroughly guarded by detached posts, militia, and various forces regular and irregular. The most of the cavalry was quartered in Connecticut; but Winwood's troop, as our narrative shows, was established near Washington's headquarters. This was a memorably cold Winter, and as severe upon the patriots as the more famous Winter (1777-78) at Valley Forge. About the latter part of January the Hudson was frozen over, almost to its mouth.
Long before I fell upon Lieut. Russell's narrative, a detailed account of a British attempt to capture Washington, by a bold night dash upon his quarters at Morristown, had caught my eyes from the pages of the old "New Jersey Historical Collections." Washington was not the only object of such designs during the War of Independence. One was planned for the seizure of Governor Livingstone at his home in Elizabeth, N.J.; but, much to Sir Henry Clinton's disappointment, that influential and witty champion of independence was not at home when the surprise party called.